


Compared to Missing Him

by parttimehuman



Series: Compared to the Moon [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Bad coping mechanisms, Emotional Hurt, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Missing Persons, hope for a happier ending, mentions of a dead body, self destructive behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-07-12 17:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15999737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimehuman/pseuds/parttimehuman
Summary: Just when things started to somewhat work out between Theo and Liam, Theo disappears. For a long time, there's no sign of him, Liam suffers. Then he receives a message from an unknown number.Or - the angsty alternative ending of Compared to the Moon, dealing with what would have happened if Theo hadn't been found.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I apologize to all those who trusted me when I said I wasn't going to bring more angst into the Compared universe. I really didn't plan to.  
> Not surprisingly, this was kind of prompted by Sab, thank you for that.  
> We're starting off after Theo left Beacon Hills and Liam behind, and from there on it becomes a whole other story. 
> 
> Fair warning - there's angst, the tags should be checked before reading.

_ Approximately 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day. _ Liam had read that on a poster hanging from the wall at the Sheriff’s station of Beacon Hills. On that day, one of this reports would be made by him, because on that day, one of those missing persons was the boy he’d called his enemy at first, and then an ally, a friend, the love of his suddenly more colorful life.

 

Liam didn’t understand what had happened for Theo to leave just like that. They’d won the game, they’d been happy, they’d been so close on the playing field afterwards, so trusting. Theo had opened up so much. Walls had been tumbling down between them, and all of a sudden, where those walls no longer were, an infinite distance had replaced them. 

 

Liam’s hand moved to the bump on his head where the car had hit him the night before. The daggers maltreating his heart had urged him out of the house, had caused him to run, and he would have run a lot farther if not for the little accident right in the street he lived in. Now his entire body ached with pain, his arm and shoulder pretty badly bruised, but the only permanent damage was the one done to his heart. 

 

They’d been supposed to drive home together. Liam had been supposed to pick the music while Theo had been supposed to bring them home safely, to their home, the one they both shared, and then they had been supposed to sleep in bed together, preferably cuddling. Liam would have held Theo’s hand, would have kept stealing kisses, would have told Theo all the things he knew by then. That Theo was his reason. That Theo was his truth. That Theo was the colors beneath his skin, the red as well as yellow. And the blue and all the others, coming and going, drawing pictures that didn’t always make sense, tingling him in places he hadn’t been aware of so far, always there, always beautifully alive, messy and cryptic and dizzying, but never gone. Not until Theo had been gone as well. 

 

All of Liam’s twenty-seven texts had been remained unanswered. He didn’t know what else to write. In some way, he was sure Theo wasn’t reading anything, but just in case, and because he knew he must have fucked up, he couldn’t stop trying, hoping to eventually find the right words of apology to make him come back. He was walking a thin line, trying to say the truth about how he felt about Theo, but not so much of it that would take away the chance to say some words to Theo’s face for the first time like he wanted to, with a red glow and warm hands in his own. Every fifteen seconds Liam checked his phone, and every fifteen seconds brought another sting of disappointment.

 

Liam had spent the night in the emergency room, and then the morning sleeping for almost three hours before he’d woken up sweaty and panicking from a nightmare he hadn’t remembered. He’d known more sleep would have been the healthy thing, but he’d had to flee the bed that had been cold and far too big without Theo in it. He’d looked at the pillow next to his own, a notch in its middle like Theo always did, punching the pillow with his fist until it was right for him to sleep on. Liam hadn’t been able to look at it, had thrown a blanket over it before leaving for the bathroom. 

 

He’d expected it to be Theo when his Mom had knocked on his door, and he’d expected it to be Theo when the doorbell had rung after breakfast and Mason and Corey had been standing there with empty faces and dark splotches on their cheeks. He could have lived with that, with Theo just disappearing for one night and showing back up in the morning. He wouldn’t have asked for an explanation or an apology, would have been glad and thankful, would have welcomed Theo back in his arms. He knew that Theo carried a lot of heavy weighing past tragedies on his young shoulders, and he understood that Theo was a lot more sensitive than it appeared at first, and he would have accepted that. But Theo hadn’t returned home. Not for breakfast and not for lunch.

 

“Did you two fight?” Jenna had asked naturally. It had happened before, and she had been ready to be her calming, peacemaking self, to dry some tears and clean up some cuts on hearts she always protected, but it hadn’t been the same problem as when Liam had had his dick day. 

 

“No,” Liam had shaken his head sadly, “I don’t know why he left. Things were pretty great, actually.” Maybe, he would have told his mother about the things going on between him and Theo in that moment, and about the things he wanted to go on, maybe, if the circumstances had been less… complicated. 

 

“He didn’t say anything?” she’d wanted to know. 

 

“No,” Mason had answered for Liam. “Everything was just as always. And Liam was talking to me when Theo left. It was just for five minutes. And when we were done, Theo was just… gone.” 

 

“You haven’t heard anything from him?” 

 

Liam had just shaken his head and pushed his plate with eggs and bacon away. Jenna had wanted to go down to the Sheriff’s station on her own, but Liam had known that he wouldn’t be able to lie down and get rest at home in the meantime. Panic had been settling a little deeper inside his soul with every passing minute without a sign of Theo, and Liam wasn’t exactly good with silently processing his emotions. He’d needed to do something, which led him to the Sheriff’s station, where Jordan Parrish finally had time for him.

  
  


"Liam," Parrish said, "what can I help you with today?" The deputy crossed his arms and looked at Liam expectantly. He couldn't blame him. They knew each other. And not in the way you were supposed to know a law  enforcer. Some of the worse dick days of Liam’s life had ended up at that same place. 

 

"Theo's missing," Liam said simply. He knew he had to state the facts as clearly as possible.

 

"What do you mean, Theo's missing?" Parrish wanted to know. He seemed unconvinced.

 

"I mean, he's missing. As in, nowhere to be found. Gone. Vanished. Poof." Liam could feel his mother’s hand on his shoulder, reminding him not to let his voice turn inappropriately harsh, but it was hard to follow her silent warning. Liam couldn’t feel the familiar heat in his neck, and as much as he’d always loathed it, being without it, he felt naked and weak.

 

"Okay," Parrish sighed, sitting down in front of his computer, but Liam could tell he did it more because it was his job and he had to than because he believed him. "So, how do you know he's gone?"

 

"Well, because he isn't here?" Liam suggested confusedly. What did officers in training learn at the academy? How to ask the dumbest questions? "He’s been living with me for weeks now. He hasn’t been home, though. It’s not like he has anywhere else to go. Theo doesn’t have any family left in Beacon Hills and I’ve been in contact with all of his friends. Nobody's seen or heard anything from him."

 

"Have you tried his phone?" Parrish asked next. Really, was this guy serious?

 

"Yes," Liam nodded, getting restless in his chair, leaning forward. Theo could have been god knows where by then. He could have been in danger. Or dying. And Parrish was wasting time like that. "Me, Mason Hewitt, Corey Bryant, we've all called him several times, sent dozens of texts, he hasn't reacted in any way at all."

 

"Theo Raeken...," Parrish mumbled, looking into the screen of his computer, "he's twenty years old, Liam."

 

"Yeah?" Liam replied. "So what? Twenty year-olds can't be kidnapped?"

 

"No, but-" Parrish exhaled deeply. "Since when did you say he’s been missing?"

 

"Yesterday," Liam answers, "he disappeared after our lacrosse game. So, in the early evening. Around six, maybe."

 

"Six," Parrish repeated, "in that case it's been less than twenty-four hours. There's nothing I can do for you."

 

"What?" Liam asked. It was ridiculous. He knew Theo. Twenty-four hours or not, he knew something was up. What did time have to do with it anyway? Shouldn't it have counted more what the three people closest to Theo had to say? "But I told you, he's missing, he's-"

 

"There are rules, Liam," Parrish explained to him, or rather scolded, like he was talking to a kindergartener. "I can't go around those rules for you or your friends. And apart from that-"

 

"Apart from that what?" Liam snapped, his shoulders tensing beneath Jenna’s calmly rubbing hand. He knew it. Parrish didn't want to help him.

 

"I hate to be the one to say this-" Liam was pretty sure he didn't hate it at all. "- but you know that Theo isn't exactly the... stable type. I mean no offence, but he's been sleeping in his truck, doesn't have a permanent home, has skipped school countless times before. How do you know he isn't just moving on? Maybe he's on his way to the next town, god knows this one hasn't exactly been all warm and welcoming to him."

 

"You don't say," Liam muttered. Parrish was among those officers who’d been waking Theo up in the middle of the night to make him move his truck somewhere else before he’d moved in with Liam, as Theo had once told him in shame. 

 

"I'm sorry," Parrish shrugged, "I'm going to need at least some sort of evidence that something isn't right. Or you can come back tomorrow. But he'll already have called you back by then."

 

Liam yanked down the poster on his way out. _ 2,300 Americans _ , what a joke. What about all those nobody gave a shit about? Was there a number counting those as well?

 

Theo didn't show up the next day, didn't call. Principal Martin hadn't heard of him, not that Liam expected her to, but he checked her office as well as their guidance counselor's. He called Scott and Stiles and even Lydia at college, but they didn't know anything either. Nolan, the whole rest of the lacrosse team, Greenberg, nobody had heard from Theo. 

 

Fear started to weigh on Liam's tired limbs. At first, he became just angry. Angry at Theo for leaving him without a warning, angry at himself for missing the guy. Mad that he hadn’t attempted to make their relationship something that implied commitment, mad that Theo apparently hadn’t understood the non-verbal ways of Liam telling him that that was what he wanted. For a solid two weeks, the worst part about the situation was that Liam knew Parrish did have a point. He would have been lying if he’d said he’d been one hundred percent sure something must have happened to Theo. Pretty sure, yes, but all the way and without one single doubt on his mind? Theo had a bit of a track record, after all. What if he really was on his way to the next town, the next school, the next lacrosse team, the next “Captain”? 

 

The feeling changed, though. The more he thought about it, the more Liam realized that he'd been stupid about it. Theo might have turned up in Beacon Hills as a bit of a bad boy, might have made a few mistakes, might have been walking on the brink of crime for a while in his past, but over time, Liam had learned better than to blame it all on the personality of an asshole. Life had made Theo the way he was. Sadness had done this to him, heartbreak. Pain and tragedy and loss and the fight for survival had shaped Theo more than loving words or well-meant advice or protecting arms. Guilt. If anybody knew the taste of loneliness, it was Theo. 

 

He wouldn’t have just left Liam, right? What reason could he possibly have had to just leave like that? 

 

"Do you ever wish for the chance to start over again?" Theo had once asked Liam. It had one of those nights when not being able to find sleep hadn’t been so bad together. When the moon had made Theo’s pale skin appear yellow. 

 

"You mean being born again?" Liam had asked.

 

"Yeah," Theo had nodded, "except with the knowledge you've already acquired. So that you could do better."

 

"I don't know," Liam had said back then, "don't you think we'd find new ways to fuck up?"

 

"No," Theo had said, full of conviction, "I'd be good. I think that's what regret is."

 

"Regret?"

 

"Yeah, when you know for sure you'd do it differently the next time. When you'd turn time back to get the chance," Theo explained.

 

Liam still wasn't sure he'd fully understood the conversation they’d had that night. The Theo he knew had come to his as a collection of well-kept secrets, had been speaking in the most cryptic ways if Liam had been lucky enough to get him talking at all, and then he had finally started to open up, or maybe Liam had started to decipher the ways in which Theo shared things. With Theo gone, though, Liam wasn’t sure whether it had brought Theo closer to him like he’d thought, or if it might have actually driven him away instead.

.

A whole bunch of passed days too late, a missing person's report was finally filed. Liam answered the same stupid questions again, but the sharpness in his voice was gone as he did so. He had no energy left for anger. He just wanted for Theo to be found. Seeing Theo's picture in the local news and on the front page of the newspaper seemed strange. It didn't look like the face he remembered. But maybe it had just been too long.

 

For a while, Liam just got more tired. It became a routine, checking his phone, seeking out his friends faces every day to watch them shake their head at him, gearing up with flashlights on Friday night to search the preserve. He went over the same list of people to call again and again. For weeks, nothing changed. The worry and the pain became less constantly noticeable until they waves calmed down and nightmares were all that was left. For several hours every day, Theo was gone from Liam's memory, but he came back with force and a screeching sound every time, driving a stick right through Liam's bleeding heart and then kissed his lips coldly before he faded into nothing again.

 

Liam looked into the mirror, avoiding the dark circles beneath his eyes. They had become the only hint of color on his pale face since Theo had left. While flashes of hope in those moments when Liam awoke and sleep still had a tight enough hold of him so that he forgot for a second how alone he was and red and yellow sprinkles were splattered over his arms and chest, but they went as quickly as they’d come, the returning memory pushing them away, leaving him blank again. 

 

He wouldn’t have expected to ever miss the red in his neck, the warm stripe covering his spine. It had always been more like a living thing, with a will on its own, most of the time seeming to fight Liam, to mock him, but looking at his colorless back, it wasn’t right at all for the mark to be gone, and Liam hated what that meant, hated how obvious it was that Theo had taken a part of Liam with him when he’d left, hated that the one thing that had always been utterly and unmistakably  _ Liam _ was not only no longer there, but also not longer his, that it lay in Theo’s hands, and who knew what those hands were doing, or whether they were even still on the same continent.  

 

"Listen, Liam," Parrish said when Liam found himself at the much detested Sheriff's station again. "There's news."

 

_ Theo's back _ , was the first thing that shot through Liam's mind, but he could tell by the look on the deputy's face that in fact, he hadn’t been called in because everything was turning out alright. 

 

"What is it?" he asked.  _ Was Theo in trouble?  _

 

“We’re going to need to do something for us,” Parrish continued. Like most police officers did, he had pretty good control over the skin of his face and hands, but Liam could still see the red, grey and black shadows creeping up his neck from beneath the deputy’s uniform. So many times since Theo had entered his life, Liam had thought that he knew nothing about how the colors worked, but in that moment, he knew that it was bad. 

 

“A body has been found, Liam,” Parrish finally spilled the crucial piece of information. “Just outside of Beacon Hills. Down at the shore of the river. At the northern bridge, you know. Do you know if that place means anything to Theo?” 

 

Liam shook his head. He couldn’t answer, wasn’t able to speak at all. He wanted to see that body. It wasn’t Theo. It couldn’t be. Theo wasn't dead. Theo couldn’t be dead. Not Theo. 

 

“Would you-” Parrish had the decency to hesitate before he posed his question. “Would you be willing to identify the body, Liam?” 

 

He nodded. With tears in his eyes and trembling hands and a heart that could have been racing - or maybe it was dead altogether by then, who could even tell after all the torture the little thing in his chest had endured? It was so far worse off than Liam’s body was, and Liam’s body wasn’t doing so great either, took a little longer to heal after every time he landed himself in the hospital again. 

 

Liam formed his hands to fists and pressed so tight that his fingernails dig into the flesh of his palms as he followed Parrish down a creepily well lit hallway. It smelled like a hospital, but it sounded worse. Too quiet. Dead. The only blood at the place that was still warm was his own, dripping from his hands.

 

It was cold in the morgue, but the shiver crawling down Liam’s spine didn’t come from the cold as he walked up to the narrow table and the figure hidden beneath a light blue sheet. 

 

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Parrish asked. 

 

Liam nodded. It was a little late for Parrish to suddenly feel bad for him. But also, there was no way Liam wasn’t doing it. He needed to know. He needed to see, because no other thing would qualify as “knowing” at this point. 

 

The first thing Liam thought was how ironic it was, that a dead guy’s lips were more blue than any part of Theo had been. The body in front of him looked unreal somehow, bloated by the water of the river, which was exactly why they hadn’t been able to identify it as Theo, as Liam realized in that moment. The guy was young, with hazel brown hair and a beard stubble covering his cheeks, the dead skin as blank as Theo’s had been in life as well. 

 

For a moment, Liam thought that he couldn’t be sure. The circumstances of his death had defaced the guy badly enough for Liam to give the whole thing the benefit of a doubt, but then there were the eyes. Starry, but light green eyes. Too pale, missing the grey mixed into the green, missing the tiny dark sprinkles. 

 

Again, Liam shook his head. “That’s not him,” he said, his voice sounding like it came from somewhere far away to his own ears. The body was covered immediately, Parrish grabbed him by the shoulders and led him outside. They took the elevator, Liam was calm. Liam waited while Parrish called his mother to pick Liam up, and he was calm. He was relieved, it wasn’t Theo. Theo wasn’t dead. Parrish brought Liam outside to wait for Jenna outside where he’d get some fresh air. As soon as they left the building and the scent changed from death to life, Liam through up on the concrete between his shaky feet. 

 

***

 

Four weeks after Theo’s vanishing, right on the day after Liam had seen his first dead body, on top of all the misery and the pain and the heartbreak and not knowing where Theo was - only that after the dead body the possibility of Theo being dead as well was somehow much more present in Liam’s mind - on top of everything that was already far too much for him, Liam ran into Brett Talbot, the last person he wanted to see, the last person who was allowed to feel anything about Theo being gone, to even acknowledge it, because Brett fucking Talbot better stayed the fuck away from Theo, even if Theo was by then just a concept in their heads. 

 

“Looking shitty, Dunbar,” Brett commented on his state. 

 

“Fuck off, man,” Liam inly said and tried to get into his car without starting an argument over whatever Brett was in the mood to argue about. But of course, that would have been too easy. 

 

“Seems to me like you’re not doing that well without your boyfriend,” Brett said and earned one of Liam’s well-practiced death-glares. Brett wasn’t supposed to be the only person who’d ever called Theo Liam’s boyfriend. Not when Liam hadn’t gotten the chance to. 

 

“Leave him alone,” Nolan came to Liam’s defense, and somehow, that was just what really triggered him, since he realized just how far he’d sunk for Nolan to have to defend him from Brett. 

 

“Do you want to repeat that to my face so I can answer you properly with my fist?” Liam threatened Brett. Of course, that idiot was almost as stubbornly stupid as Liam himself. 

 

“Oh, do you need another punching bag, now that your favorite one is gone? Really gets me wondering what might have scared him off,” Brett snorted and earned a growled warning from Nolan standing nearby, but Liam was already on his way over to land the first punch. 

 

Brett was way taller than Liam, and fucking ripped, but Liam was blind with rage, his blood boiling hot in his veins, and he definitely did some serious damage on the other boy’s face, too, but by the time half of the lacrosse-team managed to end their fight, Liam spit out a lot of blood, his entire body aching. He felt so alive, every attempt to such in a breath ragged and painful, but at least that pain wasn’t coming from the inside where Theo had left his heart in pieces, and that offered Liam a certain kind of relief, even if not for long. 

 

The lady at the ER looked Liam up and down critically, clearly recognizing his face, no matter how disfigured it appeared. He couldn’t blame her. Most other people probably tried to stay away from the place after once being there. 

 

The fight with Brett wasn’t the first incident of that sort. Liam had stopped flinching when they stitched him up and his wounds burned with disinfectant solutions. He didn’t put up a fight against having to wear one of the ridiculous hospital gowns, didn’t bother taking in the details of the room they put him in, took the sleeping pill thankfully and sank back although the mattress was way too hard, fell asleep. 

 

He dreamed of Theo. He dreamed of Theo being there, not just home, but right in Liam’s arms. He dreamed of the taste of Theo’s lips and the warmth of his touch, dreamed of the things happening that Theo had denied him before leaving. In his dream, Liam rolled them over and straddled Theo, leaning down to kiss him. “I’m all yours,” dream-Theo promised him, but it wasn’t true, and Liam could crane his neck all he wanted, he never reached Theo’s lips with his own. 

 

He woke up and smashed a bottle of water, watching the wallpaper across from him getting soaked and dripping as he cried, his sobs only interrupted by occasional screams of frustration until his mother appeared by his side. She tried to comfort him, but the pain on her face, the fear of what was happening to him, of what Liam was doing to himself only added to his suffering, and he couldn’t promise her he’d do better, couldn’t explain to her why, could do nothing but let her down. 

 

In a strange moment of clarity, his mind too drained and too exhausted to filter his words, he was finally too weak not to say what burned under his skin. 

 

“I just wish I was a person that people would actually stick around for.” 

 

Jenna had always kept her composure. She’d been there holding his hand and having his back through it all, her words giving him strength and faith even when he’d thought nothing ever could. But not this time. This time, she started crying. 

 

“Liam,” she sobbed, holding his face in her hands. “My baby boy.” 

 

If Liam had thought his heart had been broken before, seeing the tears streaming down his Mom’s face was still a whole other level of misery. Never in his life before had he felt so helpless. “Mom,” he said, squeezing her shoulders. She wasn’t allowed to cry over him. The only reason he still found some moments in a day to be positive, to think that life could maybe still turn out okay eventually, was her and her faith in him. 

 

***

 

Life didn’t turn out okay eventually, at least not over the following few weeks, or months, or even years. When Liam’s mind went to its absolute darkest places, he sometimes even wished it had been Theo on that table in the morgue, because in some way, Liam believed that Theo’s death would have been a thing he could have processed, unlike his vanishing into thin air, always keeping Liam on the edge of alert. Years passed and he still looked twice at every blue truck in the streets outside. 

 

Of course, Theo’s death would have destroyed Liam. Some of his worst nightmares were about attending Theo’s funeral, and every time he awoke from one, Liam thanked the universe that it hadn’t really gotten that far. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what would have been different for him if Theo had been that guy they’d fished from the river. Compared to missing him, maybe it would have been the more merciful path, especially considering that Liam was damned to walk it for the rest of his life. 

 

On Theo’s twenty-fifth birthday, Liam drove all the way to Beacon Hills where he long didn’t live anymore. He thought about staying at his parents’ for the night, but he couldn’t bring himself to give his Mom a call on that day, or just drive by and ring at their door. He just couldn’t. Instead, he went to sit in the middle of the high school’s lacrosse field in the dark, then pulled out his phone. He took a moment to remember. 

 

He remembered the day Theo had shown up with a cocky grin and a mocking nickname, and the day Liam had crushed Theo’s truck in the parking lot. The games they’d started winning because even before they did off the field, on it, Theo and Liam had clicked right from the first moment, had completed each other in the most spectacular ways, had pushed each other further, risen each other up, grown stronger. Their opponents had looked properly defeated after that game that had been their last. 

 

It had been Liam’s last, also. For a long time, injuries had kept him from playing, and after that, the captain hadn’t wanted to return. He’d never picked up his lacrosse-stick again. Liam knew he would have smashed it. 

 

The phone in his hand weighed heavy with the fear of yet another disappointment, although Liam really should have been used to it by then. He dialled what had once been Theo’s number and pressed the cold screen against the side of his face. The grass was damp and cold beneath his body. 

 

Like always, nothing happened. The number still existed, but nobody picked up. Liam couldn’t have guessed how many times he’d called it by then. Hundreds, at least. He opened a text message. 

 

_ Hello, Theo. _

_ I wish you a happy birthday.  _

_ I also wish you were here with me, back at the place I believed for at least a short while was home to both of us. I’m sitting on the grass that used to be ours, and I can’t help but miss you. I’ve been missing you for five years now, and it doesn’t hurt any less.  _

_ I love you.  _

_ I should have told you that. I didn’t say it in the first hundred messages because I still had hope to say it to your face one day, but hope can be an exhausting thing, Theo, and I’m getting tired.  _

_ I’m not going to tell you I’m still waiting for you to come back to me. I’m not that selfish. I’m not going to say my arms are still open. At this point, you just have to know that.  _

_ Be safe. Be happy. Be it without me.  _

_ x - your Captain _

 

When Liam arrived back at his own apartment in the middle of the night, he caught himself checking his phone for an answer and laughed bitterly, but the laugh turned into a sob quickly, and then he cried himself to sleep, his blank body shaking for hours before he finally fell into a light slumber. 

 

***

 

On day 3026 since one kiss had changed everything between Theo and Liam, over eight years too late, Liam woke up to his phone showing a text. He saw the notification the moment he opened his eyes, but Liam turned around again, pulling the blanket over his bare shoulder and wrapping his arm around the equally naked body next to his own, pulling it closer against his chest. He nuzzled his nose against the smooth neck, curly hair tickling his face as he exhaled deeply. 

 

He hadn’t thought he would ever get to this point. There had been several other people in his life after Theo. Only women at first, since he told himself they were less likely to remind him of the love he’d lost, but really, there was no difference. Men landed in his bed as well eventually, and he couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed all of the attention, the excitement that came with discovering a new body and its reactions to him, the physical satisfaction. He’d worn himself out by chasing it, but every time when it had been over, Liam had always wanted to be left alone, had always rolled out of bed to take a shower and wash the traces of yet another stranger off of him. 

 

It had taken so many years and broken hearts - never his own, since that had long stopped being in the game to begin with - until he’d finally allowed himself to sleep next to another person again. It had hurt at first, to watch violet feathers resting softly on the heaving and sinking chest, but Liam had somehow find the patience to get used to it. He’d always knows it would be time to move on at some point. 

 

They cuddled for another few hours, enjoying the warmth of a slept-in bed and their proximity, exchanging lazy kisses, smiling against each other’s mouth, burying their faces against the other’s neck, sighing deeply, being content, being together, being okay. 

 

Liam didn’t recognize the number of his phone screen, so he went to the bathroom first to take a shower. He would deal with it once he’d have his first coffee. 

 

The first coffee got cold on the counter of Liam’s kitchen, though, while Liam grabbed his jacket and the car keys and left the house without an explanation. He was being an asshole, and he knew it. What kind of person simply left their partner behind like that? Without even a heads-up? Out of absolutely no logically explicable reason? 

 

The thing was, there was no second option. Not for Liam, anyway. There hadn’t been a second of hesitation. Not a hint of a doubt on his mind. Because what the message on his phone said was this: 

 

_ Captain. Can we talk? - T _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick reminder to be aware of the tags. This chapter is about what Theo has been up to for all those years, and he's in a dark place.

Theo should have known better. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to believe in the fairytale that was his life with Liam. He should have seen the dream that he’d been captured in for what it had been all along - nothing more than a false hope he’d been holding onto way too fiercely. Disappointment had been bound to find its way to him. 

 

Theo was mad as he passed the sign that informed him he was now leaving Beacon Hills, disappearing into the darkness. He was mad at life bringing him back to Beacon Hills, mad at Coach for convincing him to join the sucky lacrosse team, mad at Liam. He was mad at Liam for wrecking his truck and even more so for inviting him to his home. He was mad for every lingering gaze and every soft touch and all the kisses. 

 

He could see the truth now, and in that moment, it seemed utterly ridiculous how blinded he’d been before, thinking that his life could change for the better. Thinking that he could be anything else than the eternal outsider, the freak who tried to replace missing colors with tattoos, the tragic outcome of life’s poorest twists and turns. How delirious he must have been, to believe in a happy ending for himself, in a chance with someone as pure as Liam. 

 

Theo couldn’t remember why he’d returned to Beacon Hills. It had to have been insanity, he was sure. Nobody in their right mind would have gone back to the place where they’d lost everything, where their sister had died first and then their parents, where their life had fallen apart when they’d still been far too young to be left alone with the broken pieces. 

 

Same as all those years earlier, Theo was running away. As much as his heart was breaking over leaving Liam and the hopes he’d given him behind, it felt like Theo was on a familiar track again, like he knew what he was doing, even when he had no idea where he was headed, but as long as nobody was looking at him with expectations in their eyes, he’d be alright. He had the empty road ahead of him, some money in his pocket and a full tank. He had himself, and in many ways, the simplicity of a life only centred around the own body that needed to be kept alive, was a welcome concept to him. 

 

Sure, Theo was going to miss the warm bed to sleep in at night, just as he was going to miss the hot showers in the morning and the warm meals after school. Hell, even school was a thing he was going to miss. He was going to miss Jenna asking him whether his homework was already done, and he was going to miss her reminding them to put their dirty laundry in the laundry basket instead of leaving it scattered all over the floor. 

 

He was going to miss the domesticy, living with the Geyers and being made a part of their family, but it still came as a relief that that chapter was over now. Theo had never understood how they could welcome him so openly to their home to begin with. Here he was, the truck he now lived in again literally being the only thing he possessed, and Liam had walked around inviting a random stranger to live with him as if it hadn’t been a big deal at all, as if it had simply been a nice thing to do. 

 

Jenna had started to throw away those pairs of his socks with holes in them and replaced them with new ones, and Theo had been shamed by that gesture as much as it had warmed his heart. David had started to fill his tank every once in a while without telling him, without ever accepting the money Theo had insisted on giving him whenever he’d realized. Things like those had been added to what had been becoming an endless list of favors to him, leading Theo to believe he had found a family without ever looking for it. 

 

Every bit of love they’d given him had filled up one of the cracks in his damaged heart and ripped another piece out of it in return. The home they’d been giving him had been supposed to let him heal, but it had hurt just as much as it had helped. 

 

Being homeless and broke and without a future had never been the true tragedy in Theo’s life. The roof above his head or the money in a bank account, the grown-ups to look after him or the rules had never been what had truly been missing from his life. It wasn’t about any of it, it was about loneliness. Theo wasn’t lost because he had nowhere to stay, he was lost because he had nobody to love. 

 

Liam had made him believe in it. The sparkling blue in his eyes and the wild colors beneath his delicate skin had spoken to Theo from the very first moment, making beautiful promises that had scared him and reeled him in at the same time. Theo remembered the night they’d walked home from Sinema together, Liam lips touching his neck, like he remembered so many of the special moments he and Liam had shared. The first lacrosse game together. The first fight. Liam’s hand on his shoulder, and his lips on Theo’s own. The world ending and starting again with the kiss that had changed everything. The moment when he’d finally realized there had in fact been color living beneath his skin, as faint as it may have looked. The look in Liam’s eyes on his birthday. The pride. The feeling of those caring arms around his body. All the wishes come true. It was like all those memories were a part of his story a little more even than what happened before he and Liam met. 

 

It was like there was a life before Liam and one after. A Theo before Liam and one after. And now Theo had to leave both behind, because he knew he’d only been fooling himself. Liam wasn’t his boyfriend, that was what he’d heard him say to Mason, and he knew Liam wouldn’t lie to his best friend. Liam had said himself that he didn’t understand Theo, that he didn’t know who Theo was, that Theo was no help in finding out. It hurt like a bitch, because for the first time in his life, Theo had actually wished for it. Wished for Liam to be patient and persistent enough to look behind the façade, to make the effort it took to figure him out, to unravel all the tragic pieces of the story that was his life, no matter how painful it would be to let them out. 

 

Theo could survive keeping them all to himself, could deal with never healing, but he couldn’t have Liam by his side and hoping for it, when Liam wasn’t willing. When Liam didn’t want him that way. Of course he didn’t. Why would he? What was there that Theo even had to offer to him? 

 

He’d mistaken the look on Liam’s curious face for genuine interest, the dark shimmer in his eyes for serious feelings. He’d told himself Liam had been looking inside of him, but the alternative was so much more likely. Liam had been checking him out. The blank skin, the tattoos, everything that set him apart. Liam had been excited by it, by the rarity of Theo. He had wanted to help him, had wanted to change him. He had put yellow sprinkles underneath Theo’s skin and turned his whole world upside down.

 

But that wasn’t what Theo wanted to be. A catastrophe that had to be helped, damage that had to be controlled. Good intentions didn’t make the scars on his heart go away, and it was better to leave before Liam would realize that. Before Liam would wake up one morning beside him and realize that all his pity was for nothing. That Theo couldn’t be saved, couldn’t be fixed. That he was broken beyond repair and it was only a matter of time before he’d drag Liam down with him. 

 

It was the one thing he couldn’t watch going wrong in his life. He couldn’t stay around seeing the sparkle fade from Liam’s beautiful eyes, couldn’t witness any faked smiles or forced encouragements. Liam was going to fall in love one day, or maybe even find his way back to Hayden. He deserved happiness. He wasn’t going to miss Theo for long. It was the best for both of them, Theo told himself as he brought more and more miles between him and the place where all his memories lived. Why tears still wanted to escape his eyes and leave ugly traces on his cheeks was a mystery to him. 

 

*

 

Theo made it to the middle of nowhere in Utah before the first catastrophe happened. Actually, the first catastrophe happened when he first tried to find sleep in the backseat of his truck at night, wrapping himself in a woollen blanket at closing his eyes. Nature was too loud around him, and the car seats beneath his back too hard and uncomfortable. Thoughts of Liam were running through his mind, keeping him from truly resting. He caught himself wondering what Liam’s colors must look like in that very moment, whether his leaving had changed them at all. He was being selfish. 

 

Sleep didn’t come, only pain and heartbreak. With the first rays of sunshine, he continued his journey to god knows where, away from Liam, and preferably far. Every waking dream of him only made it clearer to Theo that poisoning Liam’s pure soul wasn’t an option. Still, the longing for the only person he’d ever wanted was so big that he turned the truck around he few times, only to think better of it a few minutes later, taking the opposite direction again. 

 

Theo was tired when he drove straight ahead in the morning, yawning and noticing how his eyelids fell shut from time to time, thinking about whether it would really be that bad if he just let go and crashed. He held on, if barely, pulling over when the next gas station came into sight, aware that coffee was very urgently needed. 

 

He paid a high price for that cup of coffee, meaning not only the three bucks it cost him, but the fact that a very sleepy Theo stepped out of the little gas station and looked at nothing. Literally nothing except for the gas pumps and an endless road with a few bushes here and there. It took him too long to process what was wrong with the image, his hands moving to the pockets of his jeans hastily, the cup of coffee falling to the ground and making a mess that he didn’t care about. He searched all the pockets of his jeans and looked around himself as if there was any chance that he’d just misplaced it, but when he put all the belongings he had on him on a little counter neatly, finding his phone, his wallet, a few loose coins and an old chewing gum, he could tell with absolute certainty that it was missing. The key for his truck. Same as the whole vehicle he’d parked outside. 

 

Theo didn’t even have the energy to scream, or to kick something. Somewhere inside him, some remaining piece of human intuition told him that it was appropriate to throw a proper tantrum after getting the only thing he’d owned stolen from him, but then he realized what a  _ Liam  _ thing that would have been, and he couldn’t. He held still instead as he felt another bit of him breaking, another sharp sting threatening to kill his poor heart, but it didn’t matter, because loss didn’t have a dimension in his life anymore, and what was a damn truck compared to the love of his life anyway?

 

Resignation was all that was left for him. Theo didn’t call the police, partly because he was afraid they could be looking for him, maybe not yet but possibly soon, not ruling out the possibility that Liam or Jenna could have filed a missing person’s report. Apart from that, technically, there were still some things Theo had done before returning home to Beacon Hills that weren’t actually completely legal, and knowing his life, he decided it was all in all a better idea to stay as far away from the cops as possible. 

 

He didn’t know where he was going, so what did it even matter how he would get there and when? Theo almost laughed. He’d had the truck since he’d been fourteen years old, had worked his ass off and saved money to be able to afford a fake license and pay the entire sum for a damn car in cash, and although people had called him that before, now for the first time in what felt like forever, he was truly homeless. 

 

“Starting from scratch, huh?” Theo said to the endless blue of the sky above him. If there was a God up there somewhere, they’d have to beg him for forgiveness on the day when he’d finally die. 

 

Theo walked. He kicked the spilled paper cup of coffee away with one foot and started walking in the same direction that he’d been headed to. As he set one foot in front of the other, he realized that he had literally nothing left, and broke down sobbing with the gas station still in sight behind him. He spit into the sand and got up, turning around to see how far he’d come after a while, frustration building up inside him about how slowly he was moving, how little effect his steps were having. 

 

A car passed by him, blowing wind through his hair and beneath the hem of his shirt. Theo watched it fade away into the distance as he kept walking, wondering why he ever even bothered, when it was so easy for others to do better than him, to go faster, to get further. To get anywhere at all. 

 

Around midday, the sun got really hot in the sky, burning down on Theo’s face. He shrugged his leather jacket off of his shoulders and bound it around his waist instead. The shirt beneath was already damp with sweat, sticking to his back. When he came by another gas station, Theo played with the thought of getting himself something to drink, but then he was too petty to actually set foot in another gas station, even if that had hardly anything to do with the fact that he’d forgotten his damn key in the truck. It wasn’t like he had another car to lose, but he still refused to buy a drink in spite of being incredibly thirsty.

 

Walking was more boring than expected. Whereas driving without a destination had always calmed Theo down, had allowed his mind to settle and rest, walking wasn’t having quite the same effect on him. He was looking at the same trees, the same muddy color on the ground for too long, counting the vehicles that passed him. One of them looked like Jenna’s and David’s car, one of them had the same color as the hoodie Liam and Theo had both owned for a short while after he’d gotten it for his birthday. One had an L as the first letter on the license plate, one had both an L and a T.  Theo decided to stop paying attention to them before it could further escalate. 

 

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the missed calls again, at the little symbol telling him there were unread messages that he knew for a fact where all from Liam, but he had to resist the temptation to read any one of them. He was too weak already, the wish to fall down in Liam’s arms as strong as the will to save the other boy the pain, but for now he was managing to keep on walking ahead, no matter how slowly.  

 

“Hey,” a voice called from behind Theo, making him turn around in surprise. The thoughts of Liam and what he could possibly have to say to him had distracted him for a moment, and so he hadn’t paid attention to the noise of an engine humming in his back. 

 

“Hey,” Theo grumbled back to the man leaning out of the window of car. 

 

“You look a little lonely, boy,” the man said with a sly smile on his lips. Theo knew in that very moment where the conversation was going. He was neither stupid nor naïve, and he’d met his fair share of guys like this one. He looked both the car and the driver over for a moment. The Mercedes was black and clean, the guy maybe in his forties, with slightly grey but still full hair and a full set of teeth, as far as Theo could tell. He showed faint signs of orange and yellow, a strangely unpleasant blue on his arms, but all of those colors were too weak somehow, like he was suppressing them. Not exactly something that made him seem trustworthy. 

 

Theo shrugged his shoulders casually. “I’m doing alright.” 

 

“Are you sure? Don’t you think you could use a ride? I’m headed to Salt Lake City. Wouldn’t mind a bit of company, if I’m being honest.” 

 

Theo knew the kind of company the guy was looking for, and his first instinct was to throw up, preferably right in the stranger’s face. Seriously, how horny did a grown ass man have to be to pick up a random guy from the street like that? Theo could have had god knows what diseases. Then again, so could the pervy driver. 

 

“I’m not letting you fuck me,” Theo said simply, because he hadn’t yet sunk that low. 

 

The man let out a laugh. “I like you, boy,” he grinned, leaning over to open the door to the passenger seat. “Hop in.” 

 

Theo might have refused if the door hadn’t already been opened. It simply seemed like the next logical step, and his feet were hurting. The prospect of a comfy leather seat beneath his ass for a while seemed worth it, and there was still time to worry about everything else later. He was aware that that attitude was exactly what had gotten him into all the trouble before, but Theo was powerless against the self-destructive part of his brain begging him to give in. 

 

Theo climbed into the car. 

 

“What’s your name?” the man wanted to know as he hit the gas. Theo was momentarily taken aback by how fast he was moving again, and then he thought that he didn’t want to share his name, strangely thinking that it belonged to Liam now somehow. Then again, the thought of being called ‘boy’ again made him feel sick, so he came up with his own solution. 

 

“Brett,” he answered, because Theo was a terrible person, and he didn’t care if Brett was getting into trouble. The only Brett he knew was a damn asshole. 

 

“Brett,” the stranger repeated, “I like it. Suits you.” 

 

Theo almost had to laugh out loud. He didn’t ask for the man’s name in return. 

 

He suffered through it for about three hours, looking out of the window at nothing and dodging all of the man’s questions, replying with short and simple lies, hoping that his monotonous voice and the complete lack of passion would be enough of a turn-off to get him out of the situation soon, but of course, the universe had no intention of letting him off its hook. 

 

“You’re so funny,” the man next to him said as he placed a hand on Theo’s knee. The phone in the pocket of his jeans just a little further up seemed to burn through the denim and his skin, forcing Theo to pull it out and find Liam’s name on it. 

 

“Stop the car,” he pressed out between clenched jaws. It didn’t matter anymore what Liam would have done in that moment, but Theo was imagining it nonetheless, picturing a fist crashing into the driver’s face and an angry like all seven hells Liam twisting his arm. 

 

“What’s wrong, Brett? Are you not feeling well?” 

 

“No,” Theo spit out, “I think I’m going to be sick.” 

 

“Oh, I’m sure we can do something about that.” 

 

There was his hand again, right where it didn’t belong. Where nobody’s hands belonged, except those of a boy who wasn’t around, who had no idea where Theo even was. He undid his seatbelt and opened the door, just like that. Although Grabby Hands had slowed down before his assault, they were still going way too fast, but what did Theo care. You didn’t fuck with a boy who had nothing to lose. 

 

“Brett!” There was panic written on the dude’s face, very clearly, a dark red coming out all of a sudden. Theo didn’t give a shit. He couldn’t afford one. “You’re not seriously going to…-” 

 

Theo shuffled closer to the edge of the seat, looking back. The asshole didn’t even hit the brakes. Theo decided that he wasn’t willing to give a final answer, wrapping the leather jacket around himself  and closing his eyes, making his peace with the fact that he might as well die in a split second before he hit the ground and the air got knocked out of his lungs, his body rolling through dirt and dust and stones towards freedom. 

 

It seemed like an eternity before he came to a halt, lying still, listening carefully to make sure the creep wasn’t coming back for him, embracing the pain that meant at least his body still knew how to do its job. Nothing happened for a while except for his own wheezed breathing, so Theo forced his eyes open and spit out some dirt, slowly getting back up. He looked like shit, blood dripping from somewhere on his head, his knees burning. The screen of his phone was cracked, but it still let him switch it on, which shouldn’t have been such a huge relief considering that he didn’t intend to ever read the messages or reply to a call again. 

 

Theo picked himself back up and tried to walk. His body didn’t seem to have suffered any serious damage, but he was done walking for the day, especially when he saw how close he was to what seemed to be a small town. It was slowly getting dim around him, and so he decided that it was smart to find the closest store to at least buy some food and water before finding a place to sleep.

 

“Uhm, excuse me?” 

 

Again, a voice caught Theo by surprise and made him whirl around, but it sounded different than the previous times, softer, more genuinely confused and with less ulterior motive. 

 

“Yes, what is it?” Theo asked, raising his eyebrows at the girl standing in front of him as he tapped some dirt off his clothes. A huge rip in his precious leather jacket was more important than the other person for a second, but then Theo focused on her and what she had to say. She had a green glow on her cheeks, and yellow ranks gracing her forearms, white petals dancing on her skin like on the surface of water. She was pretty, in an awe-inspiring way.

 

“What do you mean, what is it? You just ruined by flowers!” 

 

Theo looked to the ground, his eyes settling on the spot where the weight of his body had platted some plants. He hadn’t realized before that dirt and grass hadn’t been all he’d barrelled into, not that he’d wasted much thought on it. It wasn’t actually a regular thing for him to jump out of a driving car, so the singularity of that action had kind of been dominating his mind. 

 

“Literally, where did you even come from?” The girl wanted to know, gesturing vaguely towards the road. “Do you always just come flying into other people’s gardens?” 

 

Not physically, Theo thought, but yes, intruding places where he wasn’t supposed to be, violently tearing down walls and letting himself in, showing up without reason or explanation before leaving again, metaphorically, you could definitely say that exactly that was his style. 

 

God only knew what made him hold out his hand and introduce himself to the girl with his real name, call it desperation or absolute insanity of the mind. “I’m Theo,” he said, realizing that he didn’t really have a warm smile figured out. 

 

“Malia,” the girl responded, taking his hand a little reluctantly, distrust written all over her face. 

 

*

 

Theo had crashed on a couch in Malia’s living room for almost two months after she’d caught him one too many times making a bed in her garden shed and made him come inside. He promised her to call her sometime to let her know how he’d be doing when he left, but her number wasn’t saved in his phone, and his heart wasn’t free to let anybody inside. 

 

He took a few trains, having to get off of them after two or three stations every time before he could be asked to show the ticket he didn’t have. One time, he had to distract a lady for five minutes until the doors of the train opened and he could make a run, almost being caught by a police officer who happened to be on patrol at the station. 

 

The next few months were busy for him, so busy that Theo let himself be fooled and thought he had a chance to forget Liam. He worked every job he could find, mowing lawns and doing some minor carpentry, fixing a car here and there and changing tires. He walked elder ladies’ dogs and cleaned other people’s toilets, always on the move from one job to another to a temporary sleeping accommodation, sleeping tight after eighteen hours of work, barely having enough time to eat and rest. 

 

The feelings of missing Liam always found their way back to him. Theo saw his lost love in the blue sky and in clear water. Every shade of red reminded him of Liam, and every time the moon and stars were covering the night sky, he thought of the miracle that Liam had made possible beneath his own skin. He touched the spot just over his heart and shed a few tears, becoming aware of the hole that he was trying to cover with his hand, that his heart had stayed behind in Beacon Hills where Liam had stolen it on the very day they’d first met. 

 

*

 

Liam’s twentieth birthday was celebrated with a buzzing sound and Theo’s craned neck, a heavy hand keeping his head still and wiping at the bleeding skin before the needle came down on it again, creating an inked memorial to the only person he’d ever truly remember. Theo welcomed the pain that came with being tattooed. Every single one of the artpieces beneath his skin had cost him courage and perseverance, and that made every single one of them special. 

 

Right after it was done, Theo could mainly see red and blue and blood on his neck, feeling a little dizzy, smiling to himself in the mirror in spite of the tears that were streaming down his face. 

 

“You like how it came out?” 

 

Choked up as he was, Theo answered. “I love it.” 

 

He went to get Liam’s favorite breakfast at a diner although it was noon, and then he snapped a picture of the bright red jersey that was now at the side of his neck, the number nine on it blue and brutally heartbreaking. He attached the picture to a message and started typing. 

 

_ Liam.  _

 

_ Can you tell how bad I am at letting go of you? Here I am, more than two years after I last saw you,  getting your mark under my skin where you’ve always lived. I’m as blank as I’ve always been, but I see the world in the colors you showed me.  _

 

_ I hope you’re not as alone as I am.  _

 

_ I will never stop loving you. I can’t run far enough for that to happen.  _

 

_ Happy birthday!  _

 

He saved the message with all the others he’d written by then, although none of them would ever be sent. It was always the same moment when the tears couldn’t be held in anymore. As long as he was typing, telling Liam about a life he was sparing him, about the love that would never die, about everything that was sacred to him, Theo could pretend that they were okay, that the circumstances of life couldn’t touch them. That Theo loving Liam could be enough, and that Liam was maybe even missing him. But when he closed the message and it didn’t get anywhere, lost forever, words wasted and unread, it broke Theo in all the remaining pieces of his soul.

 

On some days, he woke up thinking that he could go back home and they’d find a way to be okay. Some nights, he dreamed about Liam being right in his arms, and waking up was the nightmare that followed. Theo began drinking too much, finding that it gave him a dreamless sleep, and so he learned to drown his demons one by one until all the bad things were gone and the good things with them, until neither shame nor dignity held a meaning anymore and Theo was ready to sell himself for a bottle of vodka. 

 

He looked into the mirror and found that Theo was gone, but Liam wasn’t, still shining in bright colors from his neck and forcing that damn thing in his chest to keep beating. Some people tried to help him, gave him a place to sleep and food or some money, a job even, but the times where Theo had busied himself in order to forget were over. He’d moved on to more extreme measures. 

 

*

 

“Hello Sir,” a young employee at a grocery store greeted him one day, and Theo punched him right in the face for no other reason than him looking so much like Liam that it tore his heart into pieces, a red glow in his neck and an ocean in his eyes. 

 

Theo stormed out of the store as the smell of blood got to his head and made him feel sick, throwing up in the middle of the street outside before running ahead as far as his feet carried him, and then collapsing at a place that Theo didn’t care about. 

 

He woke up the next morning in a hospital bed. Although his head was swimming, he could assess the situation in a matter of mere minutes. He was used to the whole procedure by then. White walls and white sheets, a stupid white gown thrown over him as if to mock his blankness and busy noises, it was always the same. Theo sat up and moved to pull the needle out of his arm so he could leave, but his arms wouldn’t obey. 

 

“Hey there, Mister Raeken,” a familiar voice said to him. There were the same green flower petals peeking out from the nurse’s work clothes as always. 

 

“What… happened to me?” He demanded to know from her. 

 

She gave him a weak smile, a bit of something deep purple framing her features. “Same as usual,” she told him, “we had to pump your stomach, Sir. How are you feeling now?” 

 

Theo panicked. It wasn’t the same as usual. “I… I can’t move,” he complained. 

 

The nurse pursed her lips, the violet color darkening on her cheeks. “That’s because you’re handcuffed, Sir. You might remember attacking the employee of a grocery store? Two police officers are waiting outside until you’re fit to talk to them.” 

 

Theo didn’t remember, not very clearly, but he knew that he had to stay away from the police, and that anything holding him in place against his will was bad, very, very bad. 

 

“Where’s Liam?” Theo whined. He was crying. Why on earth was he crying again? Where had all of the control over himself that he’d used to have gone? 

 

“Who is Liam, Mister Raeken?” The friendly nurse asked. It didn’t make it any better that a red shimmer appeared on her forehead, or maybe that was just Theo’s imagination playing evil tricks on him. 

 

“I need him,” Theo sobbed, suddenly feeling like a child, except that he hadn’t even felt that weak and helpless and alone as a kid. “Liam. I need Liam.” He started crying like a baby, thrashing his head around, wanting to hide his tears, wanting to hide his shame, wanting to die. 

 

“Mister Raeken,” the nurse called him. The hand on his arm didn’t feel real, didn't feel human. “Theo! Can you hear me? Tell me who Liam is.” 

 

“Everything,” Theo pressed out, because there were no words for who Liam was. For how kind and loving he was, how beautiful, how smart and creative, how strong. There were no words for how much he mattered to Theo, and for how much he was missing from him, how big the hole inside Theo was, and for how much it was killing him every day. 

 

“You need to calm down.” The voice sounded far away from him and unreal. “You’re not doing yourself any favors right now, Sir. Sir? Can you hear me? Theo? Sir?” 

 

Theo promised himself that he was going to go back. He was going to get back to Beacon Hills, with a truck or without one. He’d gotten close to death, close to ruining himself on enough occasions during the four years they’d been apart by then, and he knew on that morning in the hospital even as he was acting like lunatic that he needed Liam to be alright, to keep going. 

 

While the nurses and doctors and police officers were thinking he was finally going insane, Theo was having a moment of absolute clarity, seeing through a window inside himself and finding Liam’s eyes looking out for him, waiting. He was going to go back. He was going to find him. He was going to make a mess, to make a fool out of himself. The excuses he didn’t have didn’t count, the miserable state he was in didn’t matter. All that was important was Liam and to get that red streak back into Theo’s life or everything would be over. 

 

Theo didn’t change his opinion once he had calmed down or when he’d fully sobered up. He’d been stupid for a little over four years, and it was enough. The point had been reached where he knew better, where he couldn’t believe his own lies anymore, where his previous stupidity seemed nothing but ridiculous to him. Theo wasn’t going to stand in the way of him and Liam anymore. 

 

Something else was, though. The guy Theo had punched in the face pressed charges, and it didn’t help Theo’s case that several other minor interferences with the law had happened since his departure from Beacon Hills. Theo was remorseful, but it wasn’t enough. He felt bad for the man he’d hurt, and he knew he had no good enough explanation, or apology, for that matter. 

 

In the end, he would have felt bad if he hadn’t gone to jail, but the four years that he got were harsh, even in the eyes of the prosecuting lawyer. It should have been the tragic defeat, the day when he took a cab to prison and his sentence started, but in Theo’s sick and twisted life, it had a different effect. 

 

He was alone in prison, all by himself in the middle of a crowd, but that was more his life than anything else. He had time, but time had always been something he would have gladly given away. The structure prison forced into his days was brutal and exhausting, a hard thing to get used to. All of a sudden, there were rules, simple but strict, and Theo slowly learned to follow. Staying sober was a torture until the day he suddenly realized he’d forgotten what the craving had once felt like. Work wasn’t to feed himself, it was expected, and discipline nearly killed Theo before it saved him. 

 

“What are you counting the days for?” Theo’s cellmate, Mickey, asked him one day. Mickey was barely older than Theo, a few years maybe, with pale skin and dark hair and as many tattoos as he had colors. He was a red type, and a blue one, and a yellow one. And from the day on that Theo caught sight of him in the shower, he was a green type as well, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

It was Mickey who opened Theo’s eyes to the truth that life became a simple one in jail, but not the dreams of the life after. Every man, no matter what he was in for, was imagining what world he would one day get out into, the family he’d return to, the home he’d build. Every man had some way of counting time. Some kept a calendar, some scribbled on the walls, some got a tattoo every month they survived. Some counted the letters to beloved and missed partners, some the books they read through. 

 

Liam was Theo’s time reckoning. 

 

He got rid of the need to drink, and he got rid of the violence. He gained control over himself, and he began telling the story about two boys on a lacrosse team who’d started off on the wrong foot to Mickey. He saw all the gifts Liam had given him from the very start for what they were, and he worked towards a better Theo. He forgave himself for the wrongs he’d done. He allowed himself to miss Tara, to be sad that he hadn’t gotten to grow up surrounded by a family. 

 

The fourth year had just begun when Theo and Mickey were sitting in the common area, Mickey reading a book while Theo was scribbling in a notebook and a song started playing on the radio. 

 

“What’s up, man?” Mickey asked him, grey clouds of concern appearing in his face. 

 

Theo sat there like paralyzed, shaking his head, feeling his back tingling where music notes were inked beneath his skin as he listened to the song, letting it take him apart piece by piece and then back together. 

 

It was the only thing he wasn’t ready to tell his friend. He would have, because he trusted Mickey, and because the memory was not an entirely tragic one, but he couldn’t, simply because he remembered telling Liam that one day, he would share this very secret with him, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to. No further questions came, not even when tears dropped from Theo’s chin and he whispered the words along to the melody. 

 

_ Compared to the moon  _

 

_ That I set up for you _

 

_ Your eyes are so much brighter _

 

*

 

Theo had been young and full of potential when he’d left Liam behind, as he came to realize. He’d still been healthy, not eaten up by alcohol or depression, not that badly. He’d been in school, at least theoretically still on track for a degree. He’d had skills, had been able to play lacrosse like no other of Liam’s teammates. He’d looked good. He’d been damaged, even then, but he’d still been whole, with a love in his life that had been healing him. 

 

On day 3026 after the kiss that had changed everything between Liam and Theo, after over eight years of loneliness and self-destruction, after changing his mind and his heart and prison keeping him away from everything he needed, Theo was released to the freedom of finding back to Liam. 

 

He wasn’t as young as he’d been back then anymore, and he didn’t look that effortlessly handsome, at least not to his own eyes. He’d gone through more than rough times, had greeted death from afar more than once. He had no job, no money, no plan. 

 

What Theo had was a yellow moon living under the skin over his heart, and a song humming inside him. What Theo had was a story to tell, and secrets to share. What Theo had was himself, and an immeasurable amount of love that hadn’t changed a bit in all the years that had passed. What Theo had was a longing, and a future, a goal ahead that was as clear as the light blue sky on that day.  

 

He didn’t even walk away from the heavy prison gates before he pulled out the phone they’d just handed him back. He held no grudge against the place. 

 

Theo typed in the number he still knew by heart, the one that no amount of alcohol or fatal life decisions had been able to erase from his memory, praying that it was still the same, that it wouldn’t lead to nowhere. 

 

He typed in the text he’d been writing in his head for almost a year by then and sent it, taking the first breath that felt like life again. 

 

_ Captain. Can we talk? - T _

 

And then it was time to go home. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. Sorry for the long wait, thank you Manon for putting an end to it.

The drive home to Beacon Hills lasted longer than it ever had before, and yet, the time alone in the car with his thoughts wasn’t enough for Liam to be ready. So many years had been spent asking himself questions, over and over again. The hope for answers had died a long time ago, but everything had changed on that morning. For the first time in over eight years, there was a sign that Theo was out there, that he was still alive, that he hadn't forgotten about Liam.

 

The songs on the radio ripped Liam's racing heart to shreds, and they were all wrong, so he kept pressing the buttons, kept changing the station, kept looking for something that would make sense in his heart, but didn't find it. He'd never found out what the melody was that mattered so much, and it felt like he'd forgotten how badly he wanted to. Finally, he gave up and turned the music off for good. It didn't help with his nerves at all.

 

Liam took the same route he always did, the direct one, the fastest one. He passed by the same buildings, the speed of his car turning the world into a blur as he was chasing hope that he should have known better than to cling to.

 

He had nothing but a text on his phone, words that came an eternity too late, that had no meaning without actions proving their worth. He had nothing but memories of color that had long faded, gone along with Theo.

 

A part of Liam believed he wouldn't survive without seeing Theo. Seeing with his own two eyes that he was alive and well. Another part was sure he was walking right into the trap that would end him for good. In the end, it didn't matter, because there was no way to stop himself.

 

Liam looked at himself in the little rearview mirror. He'd avoided his reflection for a few years, but in that moment, he had to take a look, had to see. He wasn't a teenager anymore. His eyes had the same color but not the same sparkle. His skin was pale, empty. His hair was shorter, his beard fuller.

 

Inevitably, Liam's eyes drifted down to his neck.

 

He should have been used to the image, but he still felt a pang in his chest, like the lack of red tore pieces out of his heart every single time he became aware of it again. There was nothing there, absolutely nothing. Just bones and muscle and skin, everything you needed to survive, but not the one thing that was supposed to make him feel alive.

 

Liam had been without the mark for too long. Still, it felt like he was losing it all over again.

The stakes were higher that time, and Liam knew it. He hit the gas and drove like crazy. He wasn't going to let Theo run away again. Not this time.

 

Memories were funny things. Some were light as feathers and some weighed heavy at Liam's soul. Some were monsters lurking in his mind. Some were sweet and some were bitter. Some were big, and some were so tiny that they shouldn't have lasted. As Liam entered Beacon Hills, the memories coming back to him should have been of his childhood, of shenanigans with Mason and his mother scolding him. As he pulled up in front of Beacon Hills High, he should have thought of failed chemistry exams and awful lunch at the cafeteria and his graduation ceremony.

 

Instead, all there was was Theo.

 

The message hadn't given any specifics, and there was no blue truck anywhere in sight, but the lacrosse field was the absolute first place that had come to Liam's mind. It had once been the beginning of Liam and Theo, and painfully enough, the end as well. Or maybe not the end. 

Maybe, the fact that Liam knew he was in the right place if there was one in the world, maybe that proved it wasn't over.

 

It was cold, but Liam felt hot as he stumbled out of his car and across the parking lot. There was no light anywhere on or around the playing field, but he couldn't be wrong. He simply couldn't be.

 

He was scared. He was shaking like a leaf as he ran, but it couldn't stop him. It just wasn't possible.

 

The air smelled like Theo and the grass felt like home beneath his feet. Liam was seventeen again, just for a moment until he stopped dead in his tracks because the world was spinning too fast and everything was too crazy, and after years of nothing, a whirlwind came to get him, and he wasn't ready, and he couldn't fight it either, and nothing, nothing felt real anymore.

 

A figure sat in the shadows. A man that Liam barely recognized in the dark.

 

"Liam," he said, his voice like a knife twisting in Liam's heart, because where had it been all this time?

 

Liam couldn't answer, couldn't move closer, couldn't do anything at all except reminding himself to breathe. He remembered the moment he'd looked down at a dead body and shaken his head. Back then, it had been the eyes that had made him so certain it hadn't been Theo. He looked into the man's eyes, green and grey and a million shades in between.

 

Theo was alive.

 

Theo was in Beacon Hills.

 

Theo had come back.

 

Theo was close enough to reach out and touch him, but Liam couldn't.

 

"It's nice to see you again," Theo continued after a moment of silence. Liam wondered how he managed to find words at all. Nice? No, it wasn't nice for him to see Theo again. It was a lot of things, maybe all of them, and nice, or any word he knew, really, couldn't even come close to capturing it.

 

"Captain," Theo added more quietly, almost whispering it, like it was a secret.

 

Theo was close enough to reach out and touch him, but what Liam did was more than that. It wasn't a conscious decision, not a part of a strategy. It was red in his mind and a crack when his knuckles hit Theo's jaw. It was a splatter of blood and a thud and a groan. And then air was finally flooding Liam's lungs again.

 

"That's fair, I guess," Theo mumbled, holding his face and looking up to Liam from the ground. He looked older, and not at all like Liam had always imagined a grown-up Theo. His clothes were cheap and dirty, his skin covered in a few more tattoos than the last time he'd seen him. "You told me not to call you Captain, after all."

 

Liam was tempted to kill him.

 

"And you didn't," he spit out instead, "for eight years at least. How very considerate of you."

 

Theo didn't fight him, but he didn't back down either. He stared at Liam, holding his gaze, maybe for longer than he ever had before. Liam knew he was about to apologize, and somehow, it was the last thing he wanted to hear from Theo. There was no excuse for disappearing, period. There was no excuse for leaving without a word, for Liam's fears that he was dead in a ditch somewhere, for the nights spent wide awake and waiting, holding onto a faint hope that had slowly torn him apart.

 

"I'm sorry," Theo said, and Liam punched him again.

 

"You're not," he argued, because if Theo had been sorry, he would have come back sooner. He would have said something, done something. Anything.

 

"I am," Theo insisted. "I never wanted to hurt you."

 

Meanwhile, Liam wanted to hurt Theo very badly. He resisted the urge, keeping himself in check, but he knew it was all bullshit. Every word leaving Theo's mouth, every attempt of an apology. They came too late, and they weren't good enough, and Liam wasn't waiting for them anymore, didn't think he'd get anything that would make him consider forgiveness.

 

Had Liam really driven all the way to Beacon Hills because of a stupid text message that could as well have been just a prank? Had he really hoped for a magical reunion and a happy end with Theo? Had he really been ready to listen and talk? Had he really believed he still cared?

 

Frankly, Theo looked like shit as he sat there on the ground, with blood running down from his nose over his lip and he didn't have anything to offer that was worth Liam's time. He'd seen Theo wasn't dead, and with that, Liam was done. All of a sudden, he didn't even want to get his hands dirty again. He simply turned around.

 

"Wait!" Theo called after him. "Liam! Where are you going? Liam!"

 

Liam was tired. He'd genuinely cared for too long, and Theo hadn't known to appreciate it. He'd thought he still did, but maybe not. Maybe he was truly done now. And maybe it even felt a little bit satisfying to be the one to get in a car and drive away this time.

 

*

 

All that Liam wanted was to get away, preferably as far away from Theo and the stupid lacrosse field as possible, but he didn't trust himself to drive all the way back right away, so he decided to seek shelter at his parents' instead. It didn't really feel like coming home, though, parking his car in the driveway and unlocking the door with the key he'd always had, kicking off his shoes just like he'd used to as a kid. It didn't feel as safe and comfortable as coming home was supposed to, or maybe it felt so much like home that exactly that was what hurt him.

 

"Liam, honey," his mom said, sounding surprised as she came out of the living room and saw him closing the front door behind him. "I didn't know you were coming home."

 

Liam didn't know what to tell her, but she saw it anyway. Her smile faltered, and the bright pink flower petals on her cheeks turned into deep purple storm clouds. She came closer, reaching out, knowing exactly that he needed her, that he was coming home because in that moment, he was just a kid who'd gotten lost in a world that was too big for him.

 

"I didn't know either," he pressed out. She didn't ask what happened, and she didn't ask why he came alone. She didn't make him explain the things that were too big for words, only held him, let him lean on her and start crying like he'd never been able to anywhere but in her arms.

 

"Dick day?" She asked, cradling him, rubbing his back, catching all the pieces he was falling into, holding onto them as long as he needed her to.

 

Liam shook his head. "That's not quite it." It wasn't. Not really.

 

"Whatever it is, Liam," she whispered into his hair, "it'll be fine. You'll be fine."

 

He knew how she meant it. She was his mom and it was her job to have endless faith in him, to show him the silver linings when his eyes were on the ground. All his life, she'd done it, had saved him, over and over again, but she didn't understand. She couldn't. She couldn't possibly know.

 

Liam cried. He let all the tears stream down his face, the ones made of anger, and the ones made of grief, the ones made of heartbreak, the tears of loss, the ones of hopelessness. He let her catch them, but when all his tears were dry, it still wasn't okay.

 

"He's here," Liam said once he could speak again.

 

His mom nodded. She knew. She knew who Theo was, not who he'd become, but the place he'd occupied in Liam's heart and never left. There were tears in her eyes as well when she asked, "Is he alright?"

 

Liam shook his head. "I don't know," he answered. "I don't think so."

 

"Did you talk to him?"

 

Liam could tell that there were things she wanted to know. They stood in the hallway, Jenna halfway turned towards the living room. Liam remembered Theo's birthday, and her present for him, and that same room full of people. He wanted to give her something, because he knew she cared. Had Theo come to her first, she'd have let him in. She'd have listened. There was sadness in her eyes, and fear. There was dark grey beneath her skin, and red. He hated seeing her like that, but Liam couldn't.

 

"I'm going to go upstairs," he said quietly. He could feel her wanting to say something to him, but other than Theo, and better than anyone else in the world, she understood that words weren't real consolation to him. Every step up the stairs was a little harder.

 

Liam's room looked like always, except that the air was heavy with memories. The bed was the one he and Theo had shared for a couple of weeks. The dresser was the one that Theo had always stolen his socks from. The playstation reminded him of all the games Theo had been exceptionally bad at, and in the closet there were two dark red sweaters, exactly the same except that one was a little more washed out.

 

In the bathroom, Liam turned on the lights and began washing his hands with cold water and soap, hissing as he rubbed dry blood off of his knuckles. It didn't go away, not even when Liam's skin was all sore, and when he turned off the water and leaned down against the sink, he realized that the splatters of red on the back of his hand weren't blood.

 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Liam half whispered, half moaned. For more than eight years, there had been nothing. Not a tiny dot anywhere on him, not even a hint of color. He'd been angry, he'd been sad. He'd been confused and scared and hopeful and disillusioned, but he'd also been blank. All the time.

 

Theo didn't have the right to be the one to bring back color to Liam's life. He simply didn't.

 

The bed didn't smell like Theo anymore when Liam let himself fall down on top of it. The pillow that was closer to the window didn't have the pit in the shape of his fist in its middle anymore. There was no warmth beneath the covers, and Theo being right there beside him was nothing but a bitter tasting memory. They'd shared their most honest moments in that bed, and their first kiss. Liam had been ready to share his life, and Theo hadn't even said goodbye.

 

Liam wasn't hungry, and he didn't want to come downstairs to catch up with his parents. He couldn't possibly find sleep. There was so much  _ Theo _ in the little room that it seemed to suffocate him, but he didn't want to leave either. What if it was that he had left?

 

Like he'd always had when nothing else had helped, Liam turned to Mason for help, shooting him a text without looking at the countless messages in his inbox, probably asking where he was and why he'd left. He was so pathetic, crying over Theo while doing the exact same thing to someone else.

 

"You didn't tell me you were coming to Beacon Hills," Mason said softly as he entered the bedroom and sat down on top of the mattress next to where Liam was lying. It was a strange thing to have Mason by his side. There he was, orange swirls of light and yellow feathers, a warm hand and unconditional friendship. It felt so good to Liam that he wanted to start crying again.

 

"More than eight years, Mase," Liam said.

 

"So he's back," Mason concluded.

 

It was the one thing they'd never talked about, not after Liam had given up asking Mason several times a day whether he'd heard anything from Theo.

 

"Why is he doing this to me?"

 

Liam knew Mason couldn't answer the question either, but he couldn't let go of it. It just wasn't fair. He'd been healing. Slowly, with almost as many steps back as steps forward, but he'd been moving on. He had a life, if not the one he'd once dreamed of. He'd learned to let people in again. Why was exactly this the moment Theo had to come back into his life?

 

Mason shook his head, one hand resting on Liam's leg. "I don't know," he whispered. "Did you ask him?"

 

"He's only going to lie to me," Liam replied. He sounded defiant.

 

"If you knew he'd tell you the absolute, unadorned truth, would you listen? Would you want to know where he's been all this time? Why he left? And why he came back?"

 

Liam thought about it, but the thing with Theo and telling truths wasn't that easy.

 

"If I say yes now," he replied, "that makes me just as stupid as I was eight years ago. I wanted to know him. I knew he was a little strange, and that he had issues. I was willing to be patient with him. I thought it was working, you know. That day when he left. I'd be ready to listen for weeks and I was sure he was finally telling me something. He went and stayed hidden for over eight years just to avoid it. I'm not that stupid anymore."

 

"You don't want to know who Theo is anymore?"

 

"I don't think I'll believe him when he tells me."

 

"Don't let him break your heart again," Mason said as he laid down next to Liam, with warmth and bright sparkles that should have made him feel better.

 

"He can't," Liam said, and then he got up to turn on the playstation and get the controllers, because lying in bed with Mason was too close to doing nothing, and every nothing reminded him of blankness, and while Theo didn't have the power to break his heart anymore, the memories of him did, and Liam could feel them coming for him.

 

*

 

"Don't break his heart again," Corey said quietly, shaking his head. Even in that moment, as he sat there on the bleachers next to Theo, the marks beneath his skin were green and softly flowing, like grass in the wind, only slightly darker than Theo remembered it. Never in his life before or after had he ever come across a person quite like Corey.

 

Tears came to suffocate him, because Theo knew that Corey was right. He'd done enough damage, and coming back to Beacon Hills, asking Liam to talk, expecting something, anything of him, he didn't have the right to. For Liam's sake, he should have stayed as far away as possible. He would have, if he'd been stronger.

 

"He's everything I have."

 

Again, Corey shook his head. "You don't have him, Theo. You left him. And you waited too long to pretend like you're sorry."

 

"I wanted to come back sooner," Theo pressed out. His vision went blurry, his voice weak. He sounded like an idiot, like a child, like he was guilty of everything Corey was accusing him of, silently, and he was.

 

"Why didn't you?" Corey wanted to know. "Explain it to me. You were needed here."

 

"I wasn't good enough for him," Theo began. "I was going to spare him."

 

"Believe me," Corey said, "you didn't." His words were honest and each like a blow to Theo’s heart, but he deserved them, and as long as it was Corey who spoke them, he would take them.

 

"He wasn't supposed to miss me," Theo continued, because that was he'd told himself countless times while trying not to turn back around and go back home. "He was supposed to move on without me. He was supposed to get a lacrosse scholarship and conquer the world. He was supposed to be happy. He was supposed to find someone better and fall in love. I wasn't going to hold him down."

 

"You're so stupid, Theo."

 

"He deserved better."

 

"So you made a stupid ass decision in his name?"

 

Theo sighed and shook his head. He appreciated Corey so, so much, but he couldn't understand. "You don't know what he would have gone through. I was so broken."

 

"Unlike you, I know what he  _ did _ go through," Corey said shortly, and fuck, that one hurt like a bitch.

 

"This must be really hard to imagine for someone like you," Theo said to Corey, "but the thought that someone could actually miss me didn't occur to me. Everywhere I've ever been, I left sooner or later. Nobody ever cared. I couldn't have known Liam would be the exception."

 

Somehow, Corey looked like he'd been slapped in the face. "Fuck you, Theo," he said. "Fuck you."

 

He stood up and left, and Theo felt his heart sinking, not that he had any right to complain. Neither Liam nor Corey owed him anything, not even their attention, not even a second of listening to his excuses. His will to fight wasn't all that counted, Theo realized in that moment. Not if he wouldn't get a chance at all. And he'd blown that chance too long ago, and then again, once every day that he was running in the other direction.

 

Theo was so lost in his pain that it genuinely surprised him when Corey was all of a sudden right in front of him again, pulling him by the arm. "Come with me," he ordered. "There's something I need to show you."

 

Theo didn't think he could take it, but he didn't think he could refuse Corey either, so he got into the passenger seat of his car and kept his mouth shut as Corey drove, watching Beacon Hills passing by in a blur, looking like it always had, like pain that was so familiar it couldn't even hurt him anymore.

 

It seemed like a random spot where Corey parked and got out of the car. It was getting dark and a little rainy outside, and Theo had no idea why he was following Corey to a single lamp post in the middle of the nowhere that Beacon Hills was to him.

 

"What the hell are we do-" The words died on Theo's lips as he recognized the face in the photo on the piece of paper that was flapping in the wind. It was him. There was a photo of him, taken at school when he'd joined the lacrosse team, and the flyer said that he was missing and that all sort of information on him and his whereabouts should be directed to the Sheriff's department. It sent chills down Theo's spine.

 

"They wouldn't file a missing person's report when Liam first went down to the station," Corey said. "It had been less than twenty-four hours and Parrish was kind of convinced you'd simply pissed off. Liam didn't believe you'd do that. He kept saying that something must have happened to you. It was Jenna who got them to finally do something, I think. One time, when Liam was doing really bad, she just went and got into her car and drove off, and honestly, by the look on her face, I was completely certain she'd drag you back home by the hair or something."

 

Jenna. Theo didn't know how to even begin thinking about her. He couldn't…

 

"She came looking for me?" He whispered.

 

"She sure as hell did," Corey said. "Do you have any idea how many Friday nights we all spent searching the preserve? Looking into every corner and every potential hiding spot in Beacon Hills. Liam had to-"

 

Corey stopped to look at Theo, considering how much to share. Theo gave a tiny nod. He didn't know if he could deal with it, but yes, he wanted to know.

 

"Liam was called to the Sheriff's station. To identify a body."

 

"What?"

 

Theo felt like his legs were about to give out.

 

"He never really talked about it. And I mean, it wasn't you, obviously, so I guess he was kind of relieved. But I also think it made us all realize that it was a possibility. It could have been you, Theo, for all we knew."

 

The worst part about it was, it could have been him indeed. It wasn't like Theo had been taking good care of himself. "I'm so, so sorry for that," he whispered. He hadn't thought that far, not even in his worst nightmares.

 

"You don't even know half of the things you have to be sorry for," Corey said bitterly.

 

"Looks like I really don't," Theo admitted, averting his eyes from the stupid flyer. They should have known better than to look for him, and he'd thought they would.

 

There was a moment of silence. Theo felt like it was time to go. Clearly, he had no place in Beacon Hills anymore.

 

"You're wrong," Corey suddenly said. Theo could feel his eyes on him, but was afraid to meet his gaze. "Liam wasn't the exception. Maybe he was the first one to see it. Maybe on the playing field, or maybe when he crashed your truck. But he wasn't the only one. You left a team behind." Corey sounded suffocated, too, and very unlike himself. "You made Jenna and David worried sick about you. There was a team you were a part of." Another pause. And a weird, strangled sound. "And friends, you asshole."

 

Finally, Theo looked up from his own shoes. He felt like he had to, although he knew it wouldn't be pretty. Corey's face was white, his neck covered in dark streaks. The place was only dimly lit, but Theo could see the tears in his eyes. He'd always missed Corey, had always known his life would have been better with him in it, but Theo had considered himself selfish for thinking that way. Surely, Corey couldn't feel the same way about him, or so he'd told himself, over and over again.

 

"I didn't know," Theo breathed out, looking at Corey as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing. "I didn't know I could even be a friend to anyone."

 

"Honestly, Theo, I don't know what to say," Corey shrugged. "You're so wrong about so many things. You're so stupid. You love him." The words felt like an iron fist around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter and threatening to kill the poor thing. "You love him, and you left him. You seriously thought you were doing him a favor by going away. Do you even know how twisted that is?"

 

"Welcome to my world," Theo said. He was defeated. Overwhelmed, by what Corey had to say to him. Crushed by guilt. And highly disturbed by the little something warm inside his chest.

 

"That's enough," Corey decided, shaking his head. "Time for the big guns." He pulled out his phone at dialled a number. Theo listened anxiously to the silence before the person on the other end of the line picked up and Corey spoke, and Theo's heart that he thought he'd lost somewhere on the run was suddenly right there and shattering.

 

"Jenna?" Corey said. "Can you come here and pick Theo up? I think he needs you."

 

Theo couldn't hear the answer, or if there even was one. He wasn't ready, for none of it. Not for Beacon Hills with all its familiarity, or seeing Liam again, or talking to Corey. Everything was too much and too big and he was just so small and helpless and out of control, but Jenna?

 

"She has to hate me," he whispered, shaking his head after Corey had hung up. "She has to hate me so much."

 

"Have you been listening to me at all?" Corey asked seriously.

 

Theo didn't dare believe him. He was freezing and he was hurting and he wanted to go, anywhere, really. Away. Out of people's lives.

 

Jenna turned up five minutes later with a new car and a few more grey strands in her hair and an apron around her waist and her arms stretched out for him and tears in her eyes and so, so much more than he deserved. She came for him with her usual pink marks blossoming on her cheeks, and her hands covered in stars. She came with a red line at the side of her neck that almost killed him. Blue was moving restlessly beneath her skin, but the red was all he could see for a minute, and then her face.

 

The moment Jenna wrapped her arms around him, what went through Theo's head was that she must be the last person to have hugged him as well.

 

He wanted to say how sorry he was. He wanted to thank her, to tell her how much harder she'd made it. There were so, so many things Theo had to say. So many explanations. So many things he'd learned, so many regrets, so many promises to be better. None of them could be turned into actual words in the end, and all he did was cry into her shoulder.

 

"Theo," Jenna said softly. He had no idea how much later it was, or where Corey had gone.

 

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, because he wasn't the one she was supposed to catch and protect and build back up. In fact, he was on the exact opposite site.

 

"I don't want you to be sorry," she said. "I want you to be better. Are you going to tell him the truth?"

 

Theo knew there was one possible answer or the end of their conversation.

 

"Yes."

 

"All of it?"

 

"However much he wants to listen to."

 

"You will not make me regret this." She wasn't asking, but Theo still shook his head.

 

"Good," Jenna said. "Time to go home, then."

 

*

 

Mason was gone in the morning, and Liam felt disoriented and a little sick to the stomach. The red dots were still covering the back of his hand, and his bed still felt half empty. He still couldn't stop thinking about Theo, couldn't shut his brain off, couldn't do anything else for distraction. It was like eight years ago, and Liam hated Theo for that. For making the decision to leave but not giving Liam a way out as well.

 

Liam was facing the window, looking at the empty space between him and the edge of the mattress. Theo hadn't slept in that spot often enough for it feel like it still belonged to him, and yet, there was nothing Liam could do to change it. His back was cold and turned towards the door, the breakfast his mom had brought earlier untouched.

 

"Liam." When he heard the voice and it sounded like it always had, like he was absolutely sure it had always sounded in his dreams, Liam assumed his brain must be torturing again. "I need to show you something."

 

Liam pressed his eyes shut and prayed he would go away, but he could feel the warmth of another body behind him, could hear the breathing, Theo's presence making his heart ache.

 

"I don't want to know," Liam mumbled, because god knew he wasn't supposed to.

 

"It's the truth this time," Theo replied simply. "Colors don't lie, do they?"

 

There had been a day once, quite a special one, when Liam had gotten to hold a hand in his own and they'd both showed the same yellow mark. When Theo had shown a side of him that must have been real, even if just briefly. They'd been lying in Liam's bed that day, whispering promises and kissing tears away. Colors didn't lie. It was what he'd thought he'd learned that day.

 

When Liam sat up and half turned around, it was purely out of curiosity. Theo had shown up in Beacon Hills without so much as a single dot of color beneath his skin. To that day, he was the only living person Liam knew had ever been blank. If Theo had colors now that Liam didn't anymore, it wasn't just strange, or unfair, it was almost comical.

 

Looking like Theo, he stood there. Talking like Theo, moving like Theo. Still, every tattoo that hadn't been there when they'd last seen each other, every wrinkle around his eyes, every tiny little difference to twenty-year-old Theo felt like a decade that Liam had been robbed of. He was supposed to be there and watch all of it happen.

 

They looked at each other, Liam with his lips pursed and an unsettling feeling in his gut, Theo with a soft expression that made it even worse. Liam wasn't going to give in. Theo was the one who owed something, and Liam wasn't even sure he was going to wait long enough to see it.

 

Theo shrugged his jacket off and let it fall to the floor. How ironic, Liam thought for a second. As roommates, it had always been Liam who'd dropped clothes on the carpet and Theo who'd picked them up. Theo reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it. It felt wrong, inappropriate to be looking at him, the naked body underneath, the skin and the tattoos and whatever else had happened to it.

 

There were so many things to take in. Theo was in slightly better shape than expected, his body looking younger than his face. There was slightly more hair than Liam remembered. He saw the angel first, the one he already knew, wings spread and wrapping around Theo's waist. The river running down from Theo's right shoulder and to his heart was there, also as always. His arms were a little fuller, the sleeves started with flower ranks completed, dark and in contrast to the pallor of his skin. On one side of his neck, Liam could see the same numbers as eight years ago, but with a cross underneath them. On the other side, there was the only tattoo that had color, and it was new, but Liam knew exactly what it was.

 

A dark red jersey and the number nine. Liam's eyes would have lingered there, but the colors of the jersey were ink, and there were colors moving across Theo's chest that definitely weren't.

They weren't exactly very prominent, not with the amount of ink beneath Theo's skin, but they were there. Two marks, moving just a little.

 

One was yellow and round, half a moon and half a sun, shedding light over the waves covering Theo's chest. It was the same one Liam they'd found on the back of Theo's hand on his twentieth birthday.

 

It was the other one that caught Liam's attention though, that captured his eyes and caused his heart to start racing. Crossing the river like a bridge, there was one simple red streak, straight and sharp in the middle, the edges smudged and softened, like smoke that slowly faded.

 

Never in his life had Liam believed to be able to make any sense whatsoever of the damn colors. Not his own and not anybody else's. The red was his though, whatever it may have stood for, whatever emotion it was connected to. The red was Liam and it didn't belong right there above Theo's heart, but colors didn't lie, did they?

 

Tears were burning in Liam's tired eyes. The world was being so unfair to him by showing him this. There was no reason to be surprised, really. It just confirmed what Liam had always known. That Theo had left and taken a part of him along. It had simply been too long since he'd given up the hope to ever get it back.

 

"Why did you come back?" Liam asked.

 

"Because you're everything good in my life," Theo responded.

 

"And it took you over eight years to figure that out?"

 

Theo shook his head. "No. I figured that out the day I left."

 

"That must be the stupidest reason you could possibly give me." Liam said. He watched Theo walk over to the window and then sit down on the carpet in front of it where Liam could see him but direct eye contact wasn't inevitable.

 

"It's the truth," he said. "I had nothing and nobody, and then there was you. I was scared."

 

"Of what?" Liam wanted to know.

 

"You finding out how damaged I was. Of falling in love. Growing attached. Being left. Of an ordinary love story.  Fading feelings. Of the day that I was completely sure would come, the day where you'd leave me. The day I'd go back to nothing again.  So I ripped the band-aid off myself."

 

Liam felt offended by Theo's assumption that he would have left him. He was angry, angrier even than before, because it was confirmed that Theo had left without a good enough reason. They could have had all those years together. Graduation and college and their first apartment on their own. Date nights and adopting a cat and all the stuff Liam had watched Mason and Corey do over the years. He and Theo, and he wouldn't have given that up for the world.

 

"You were wrong."

 

"I know," Theo nodded.

 

"You could have come back home."

 

"I wanted to. On every single day without you, I wanted to turn back around and find you."

 

"Why didn't you?"

 

"It wasn't that easy."

 

Liam couldn't stop the anger from rising up inside him and putting words on his tongue. "You think it was easy to look for you everywhere? To explain to my mother what I'd done to drive you away? To go on, not knowing what had happened to you? You think it was easier to fucking miss you all the time?"

 

"No."

 

"You could have come back," Liam said again, sounding desperate, frustrated. "You could have come back. You had a home. It  _ was _ that easy. It was. I was right here, waiting."

 

"You were going to break my heart sooner or later," Theo whispered. It sounded weak, like he knew he wasn't going to win this argument.

 

"So you broke mine instead."

 

Theo said nothing. He stared out of the window, arms slung around his legs, lips pressed into a thin line, only his chest heaving and sinking.

 

"I think I need to show you something as well," Liam said, standing up from the bed. "I think it's time for you to see some truth from me, too." He was mad, yanking the shirt off of him, throwing it away, looking down as he stood in front of Theo, forcing his eyes up. "Here," he said, quietly, sounding bitter.

 

Where Theo had ink and color, Liam had nothing. He watched Theo losing control over his features and then turned around to show him his back. He knew there hadn't been anything there, not in all the time since Theo had left. The red traces on his hand weren't mentioned.

 

"I didn't mean to-"

 

Liam didn't let Theo finish. "You don't get to decide that. You can't come into people's lives and then leave again. You don't get to decide what you mean to someone. You don't get to decide they shouldn't miss you when you're gone. You can't just assume nobody will care!"

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"I cared!" Liam all but shouted. "If I'd known where you were, I would have come and brought you back. And you know what? You should have known that. No, I didn't say it. I didn't make a big love confession, and I didn't ask you to be my boyfriend or whatever. But you should have known."

 

"You're right," Theo said. A tear dropped from his chin. Liam caught himself wanting to wipe the ones that followed away.

 

A part of Liam wished for Theo to fight him, to defend himself and come up with proper excuses. Something like,  _ 'sorry, I've been kidnapped and only managed to escape yesterday' _ maybe. It would have meant they could make up and reunite. It would have meant nothing was Theo's fault. With Theo sitting on his carpet, his head bowed, his cheeks wet from crying, his voice weak and lip quivering, Liam had no reason to forgive him.

 

Except that he loved Theo exactly the same, even after all those years.

 

Liam sighed deeply and went to lie back down. He stared at the ceiling and breathed. The urge to smash something turned into nothing as he listened to Theo breathing. He closed his eyes and let the tears come. They were so messed up and broken, but something inside him felt exactly right when it definitely shouldn't have. He was far away from home and someone waiting for him. It was so much too late, and it hurt in all the most terrible ways. He couldn't even begin to think about everything that needed to be figured out. They were almost hopeless.

 

But all that Liam could think about was that Theo was there in his room with him.

 

Compared to missing him, it was so much less painful.

 

Moments passed in silence before Theo spoke. "I think it's time I tell you about Tara."

 

Liam didn't answer, afraid that it would make Theo change his mind about it. He had a feeling that yes, it was time.

 

"I was nine when she died," Theo began. "She drowned in the river. It was too cold and too deep and the current too strong. I saw her struggling, but I didn't know what to do. She was the strong one, the protector. I knew I didn't stand a chance against the water. I went in as far as I could still stand with my feet on solid ground, but I couldn't reach her. It felt like an eternity. It was so awful."

 

Liam was still silent, partly in order not to interrupt him, and partly because he was in shock. He'd known Theo had once had a sister. He hadn't known Theo had been there when she'd died.

 

"My parents never said they blamed me for not helping her, but they didn't have to. They fell apart. They fought about everything. Their grief was eating them up and tearing them apart. Being at home felt like I lived with ghosts. They never told me about their decision to leave Beacon Hills. They packed their things and put me in the car. They fought even then, and I knew there wasn't going to be a new beginning anywhere else. We crashed. They died. Nobody ever left Beacon Hills behind except me."

 

Liam turned to his side and watched Theo's back as he continued, tracing the lines inked beneath his skin, the music notes to a song he yet had to learn.

 

"I was ten years old. I slept on the streets and broke into people's houses. I stole. I cheated my way through a life that didn't want me. And you know what's funny about it? I was good at it, the first time around. I was a kid, a teenager, but I managed. I kept my stomach full and went to school. I only had to repeat two years, one in middle school and one in high school. I got the truck and things seemed to be working out for me. After I'd left you, I thought I was going back to the old ways. It shouldn't have been different. Technically, I'd only been with you for a couple of weeks. But nothing was the same. And I didn't manage."

 

"What happened?" Liam asked quietly when Theo didn't seem to continue speaking. He didn't owe it to Theo to listen, but ultimately, what Theo had been up to all those years was still the question that bothered him the most.

 

"My truck was stolen at the first gas stop on my way out of California. I had nothing, literally nothing left. It all spiraled downhill from there. The details aren't pretty, but I was alone, I was homeless, I was lost. I fell into some very questionable coping mechanisms. I started drinking, and you're right when you say that I could have been dead in a ditch. I could have been."

 

"You're not drunk right now," Liam stated. Theo shook his head. "What changed?"

 

"They don't let you drink in prison."

 

"Prison?"

 

"I knocked a guy out," Theo said. "It was pretty bad. I got four years because I'd been involved in too many other minor things already."

 

"Shit."

 

"I don't know," Theo shrugged. "It got me sober. I had a job in prison. The first actual job in my life. I worked through a lot of shit. You know, I had surgery while I was locked up because my arm had been broken. And it was so messy that they had to break it again before it could heal. I think that's what they did to me. Break me down until there was nothing else to do but put the pieces back together into something useful. I'm not saying it wasn't hell, but it changed a lot of things for the better."

 

"I had no idea," Liam whispered, although it went without saying. He couldn't have known. "How did you get through that?"

 

"You," Theo answered simply.

 

Liam was afraid to ask.

 

"I was released yesterday," Theo said a few seconds later. "I'm sorry I didn't manage to get something nicer to wear first."

 

It was so utterly ridiculous. As if the clothes Theo was only wearing half of mattered. Getting in touch with Liam had been the first thing Theo had done after getting out, he realized.

 

"You came home."

 

"It was actually nice," Theo added. "I think it was the first time in my life that I knew exactly where to go."

 

Liam was a little overwhelmed, to say the least. Theo had promised the truth, but no matter how many years Liam had spent imagining different possible scenarios, the story Theo had come to tell was still different und unexpected and hard to hear. There was a lot more to the situation than Theo's vanishing and Liam's broken heart. Not forgiving someone could be a lot harder sometimes than anticipated.

 

Liam tore his eyes away from Theo's back to give his brain a break. He looked down at his hand instead, finding that the dots on his knuckles had turned into roots and fine red lines were slowly making their way up his arm, growing thicker, wrapping around his biceps. He couldn't help but stare for a minute, because he hadn't seen the color on himself in what felt like an eternity, and like Theo, it felt like home as it slowly came back to him.

 

Liam watched the mark spread, covering his shoulder in red dust, drawing patterns, tingling beneath his skin. Like it always had been, the red was alive and a part of him. He closed his eyes when it disappeared from his view and spread to his neck. A shudder went down Liam's spine, followed by a warm sensation.

 

"Theo," he said, softly. "What's the song?"

 

Theo moved and let out a shaky breath. He got up from the floor and the mattress dipped. Liam felt relieved that the other side of the bed had Theo back. He assumed that the moment of silence was due to what was happening beneath his skin, but then Theo was close enough next to him for Liam to understand him perfectly even when his voice was barely above a whisper.

 

"Tara used to sing it to me," he said. "Not necessarily to me, but she was always singing it, or humming the melody. I think she wasn't even aware that she was doing it. I have no idea what it meant to her. It's not even a good song. And frankly, her voice wasn't the greatest either. I hated this song. Until I never heard it anymore."

 

It made perfect and absolute sense. Liam reached out and took Theo's hand, his eyes still closed, the reality of their situation still too messy and too overwhelming to try and take it on right away.

 

Theo took a deep breath out before he began singing so quietly that it almost wasn't audible.

 

_ Compared to the moon _

 

There were so, so many things they had to talk about. Theo's story was so much bigger than what Liam had imagined, and Liam's story hadn't even been touched.

 

_ That I set up for you _

 

It was not a big reunion. Nobody made promises. Nobody made apologies. No love was confessed. There were just two men and intertwined fingers between them. And an explosion of colors.

 

_ Your eyes are so much brighter _

 

It was hardly the moment to finally fall asleep. It was the middle of the day, the middle of a big mess that needed to be untangled bit by bit, truth by truth. Liam's eyes were closed and his heart calmed down. He could finally breathe, he could finally be.

 

"Promise me that you know better now," he begged.

 

"I promise," Theo said.

 

"Stay."

 

Liam opened his eyes and put his free hand over Theo's heart, where the sun was, and the moon. And the truth.

 

"I promise."

 

And everything else was for a future that finally existed.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to yell! I'm dying to hear it!


End file.
